Size-Resolved Identification and Quantification of Micro/Nanoplastics in Indoor Air Using Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography–Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Humans are exposed to differing levels of micro/nanoplastics (MNPs) through inhalation, but few studies have attempted to measure <1 μm MNPs in air, in part due to a paucity of analytical methods. We developed an approach to identify and quantify MNPs in indoor air using a novel pyrolysis gas chromatographic cyclic ion mobility mass spectrometer (pyr-GCxcIMS). Four common plastic types were targeted for identification, namely, (polystyrene (PS), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). The method was applied to size-resolved particulate (56 nm to 18 μm) collected from two different indoor environments using a Micro-Orifice Uniform Deposit Impactors (MOUDI) model 110 cascade impactor. Comprehensive two-dimensional separation by GCxcIMS also enabled the retrospective analysis of other polymers and plastic additives. The mean concentrations of MNP particles with diameters of <10 μm and <2.5 μm in the laboratory were estimated to be 47 ± 5 and 27 ± 4 μg/m 3, respectively. In the private residence, the estimated concentrations were 24 ± 3 and 16 ± 2 μg/m 3 . PS was the most abundant MNP type in both locations. Nontargeted screening revealed the presence of plastic additives, such as TDCPP (tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate) whose abundance correlated with that of polyurethane (PU). This is consistent with their use as flame retardants in PU-based upholstered furniture and building insulation. This study provides evidence of indoor exposure to MNPs and underlines the need for further study of this route of exposure to MNPs and the plastic additives carried with them.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".